The copyright industry never seems to have had enough. Starting today in Sweden, they demand a private tax for external hard drives and USB memory sticks.

The tax they demand is about 9 euros for an external hard drive, or 10 eurocents per gigabyte for USB memory sticks. They have previously demanded a tax for cassette tapes, which was how this private taxation right started, and gradually expanded it to blank CDs and DVDs, as well as media players with built-in hard drives. Yes, that includes the latest game consoles — Swedish kids pay about 15% tax to the copyright industry on a Playstation 3.

This stems from the entitlement that since you theoretically can make legal copies of your media onto blank storage, the copyright industry demanded — and got — compensation for this hole in their monopoly.

Thus, it is important to remember — as is pointed out in this morning’s press release from the Swedish Pirate Party — that the blank media taxation right isn’t intended to cover the imaginary losses from file sharing online. It’s intended to cover a completely different imaginary loss, the one from when you copy your purchased media onto blank media in your own home.

Thus, they are getting away with demanding money for actions that are even explicitly outside of the copyright monopoly. Demanding compensation for violations of your monopoly is one thing; demanding compensation for actions outside of your monopoly is something else, and demanding compensation for the theoretical possibility of such actions lands us at where we are.

We’ve now arrived at a point where they can demand and get away with anything, apparently.

Just because you can theoretically store their crappy music on a general-purpose storage device, which you probably never will, they have been given the right to tax you. More likely, you use external hard drives to store vacation and family photos, or backups of your work.

It remains to be seen if they actually get away with this tax demand, though. The electronics business in Sweden has said “take a hike” and will meet the copyright industry in courts over their interpretation of the taxation right.

Rick Falkvinge

Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. He works as Head of Privacy at the no-log VPN provider Private Internet Access; with his other 40 hours, he's developing an enterprise grade bitcoin wallet and HR system for activism.

Discussion

In Portugal they want to add 20 € to a terabyte hdd, and the Portuguese authors association had the gall to claim he represented civil society.

Another funny thing about that proposed law: it would make them able to claim taxes from creative commons work, which they can’t so far, while they admitted despising CC and the law wouldn’t grant access to the funds.

So they found a way to tax free works as we’ll, when previously they weren’t able to.

I own and operate a small recording studio. I have ten or fifteen USB and Firewire external hard drives. Are they going to pay me for the music that I’ve recorded and stored for my customers?

Really they should. If they want money for me copying their music, they should pay me for me copying my music. It’s only logical.

Wayne

PS: My first book, Copyright Wars Volume 1, will be available on Amazon within a day or so, assuming their system works properly. It will also be available on other EBook stores under ISBN 978-0-9877226-0-7

Rick, once you said that copyrights are kids regarding banks. I disagree! Bank at least provides you security, or feel of security… and copyrights provide nothing, and takes even more than banks. I’ve been to court with them in Serbia, I couldn’t believe something like this exists.. but it does (I have copyrights, and I was organizing an event… if anybody on that event have a phone ringing, it is the ground to be paid to them.) Eventually, it is private group of people who takes profit, mostly delegated by the richest publishing companies.
Majority of texts on my blog is about them (in Serbian, unfortunately).

karl

September 1, 2011

So the situation would be like the old cassette tapes – you pay the “tax” and then are free to legally copy music onto the tapes as you have paid the fee.
Logic dictates this is exactly the same situation – you buy a USB and having paid the “tax” are then free to download the material of your choice.
In this case illegal download should not count as you have already paid.
It would be unjust to have to pay a further or second payment for royalties on downloads, in this case as we would in effect pay copyright two or more times for a download.
The criminal patents lawyers must decide exactly what their strategy is – and we must of course fight them all the way.

Thomas Fullerton

September 1, 2011

Before you can get to the bottom of a problem, you have to define it properly:

It is not the ‘Copyright Industry’ that is demanding a ‘private tax’ on hard drives, it is the State that is demanding and getting money from you. There is no such thing as a ‘private tax’; only the State can tax in Sweden.

Your problem here is that you are not using English correctly. Taxation is theft. Period. The copyright industry is working in tandem with the State of Sweden to steal money from you so that you can use property that you legitimately acquire for money. This is immoral and ridiculous.

This is the truth of this matter; you are obliged to accept it if you accept the basic premis of democracy; that the majority can confer legitimacy and power to the State through a vote.

If you believe this, then you have no cause to complain about this theft (misnamed ‘duties’, ‘taxes’, ‘tariffs’, ‘licenses’, to stop you from understanding what is actually being done to you) because democracy is working as you want it to, “the will of the majority”.

The power to tax (steal) is not legitimate, and cannot be conferred by a simple vote, because you do not have the power to steal from your fellow man. You cannot give away something that you do not have.

Until you concede this, you will forever be complaining about these matters without ever having the ethical basis upon which to object. You cannot complain about this measure, but not other measures which your fellow Swedes think is OK; their say and ‘right to steal’ is equal to yours in your system. This is the contradiction and fundamental flaw that you must face up to.

A voluntary society is the only one that is without this and other contradictions. This is what Libertarianism is about at its core. You cannot have true freedom in a democracy, and this ridiculous tax on hard drives is just another example of why this is so.

In Serbia it isn’t like you stated. It is not called “tax” but “fee”.
Law says that “Organization” has the right to demand paying fee, not the State! (“Organization” even has the right to determine the fee !?) .
And “Organization” is a group of people with its names.

Rick Falkvinge

September 1, 2011

Actually, this is not entirely correct. The State has given the right to private taxation to the copyright industry; they are then claiming the right to tax things as they please.

So while you’re right in the aspect that the violence ultimately comes from the state, the decision was made by the copyright industry alone in this case.

Thomas Fullerton

September 1, 2011

This is interesting; how can the Swedish copyright industry come to a decision to steal money from the Swedish citizenry by itself, and then have it become a State enforced law? If this is the case, then any corporation can be given a new ‘right’ by the State to do whatever they like to you in terms of stealing money.

The State can give the ‘right’ to tax your breakfast to farmers for example. Or even better; why dont you form a corporation to tax the copyright industry? Then you could use this new ‘right’ to redress the balance of the ‘right’ conferred to the copyright industry!

None of this makes any sense of course, because rights do not come from the State.

If the copyright industry can do this, then no Swede is safe from arbitrary ‘Red Flag Act’ / ‘Swedish League of Ice farmers’ taxation to prop up their failing business models.

You must face the facts of what rights are and where they come from, and the broken structure of Swedish society that allows corporate interests to directly invent taxes to enrich themselves, and you must do this consistently and in a non contradictory fashion.

Let me be perfectly clear about why I post comments here; I think you, Rick, are doing great work and are a great writer. Your influence has been positive and beneficial. I am merely trying to steer the conversation towards reason and the root causes when I make comments here.

steelneck

September 1, 2011

Then how would you like to handle dissent in a society?

Mårten

September 1, 2011

I’m familiar with the argument that tax is theft, but I’m not convinced. After all, why can’t you see tax as a membership fee for being a citizen of the state. If you don’t like it you can move. Now, I agree it’s not ideal, but in the alternative, a stateless society, wouldn’t all land of interest quickly be occupied (whether it’s done rightfully or not doesn’t really matter here) and then the owner of that land would demand a fee of anyone who wanted to live there. That is the way it used to be, and the owner would be called king or lord… from that the system we have today evolved. I think most people would agree it’s better the way it is now?

Thomas Fullerton

September 2, 2011

After all, why can’t you see tax as a membership fee for being a citizen of the state. If you don’t like it you can move

So, If I am born a Swede, have a house in Sweden that belongs to me, where I live with my children, and I do not bother anybody, do not steal from anyone, mind my business, you say I should be compelled to be a member of your club, or leave my house my land and my property?

This doesn’t make any sense at all. If I want to be a member of something, I will voluntarily join it and pay for it if that is what is required as a part of the terms of membership. I refuse however, to be born into membership of your exclusive club (which is actually being born into slavery) with no opt out, no rights etc etc.

And if I choose not to leave, no doubt you will personally come to my house to evict me and frog march me to the border. Oh, of course not, because you are a good person and non violent; you would never get your own hands dirty like that, you pay other people to do your nasty violent work for you.

This relates directly to the matter of this new ‘tax’. I do not want anything to do with the copyright industry. When I buy a blank drive, that is a matter between me and the person who is selling it to me. No one has the right to violently interpose themselves between me and a seller, and this is what is at the heart of this matter; violence, and property rights.

If I want to voluntarily give my money to a person who makes films or music that is up to me. It is not up to your violent society with its sick philosophy and twisted logic to force me to pay for other people’s business models, careers and life styles.

Finally, saying that ‘most people would agree’ is a logical fallacy. Go look it up.

This tax is immoral. The copyright industry has no right to take money from you based on the act of you buying from someone in another industry that has nothing to do with them.

If they can unilaterally decide to tax other people, and the State backs them up, then the Swedish people are in very serious trouble.

Mårten

September 2, 2011

“you say I should be compelled to be a member of your club, or leave my house my land and my property?”
You say, “MY land”, but what if you didn’t own it in the sense you think. What if you instead rented the land from the Swedish government on the condition you joined the club. In a society without a state, how do you envision you would get the chance to “own” any land? It would all be claimed quickly by local warlords and then we would have to rent land from them (pay taxes to)… it’s happened in the past over and over again. Now I have some democratic influence over it at least.

“Finally, saying that ‘most people would agree’ is a logical fallacy.”
You’re right. I, think it’s better to have some democratic influence rather than none.

“If they can unilaterally decide to tax other people, and the State backs them up, then the Swedish people are in very serious trouble.”
Couldn’t agree more.

Thomas Fullerton

September 3, 2011

You say, “MY land”, but what if you didn’t own it in the sense you think. What if you instead rented the land from the Swedish government on the condition you joined the club. In a society without a state, how do you envision you would get the chance to “own” any land?

The only arguments you seem to have are straw men and other forms of fallacious reasoning.

Are you saying that in Sweden, the State owns all the land, and that home owners only rent the ground upon which their houses sit from the State? If that is the case, Sweden is a nation of slaves.

I don’t have time to pick apart your straw men, but I will swing this back to copyright and this blank media ‘tax’.

By your logic, everything you own, including CDs, DVDs, hard drives and whatever else you have paid for, actually belongs to ‘Swedish Society Inc’ and you only rent all your property no matter what it is. This includes the money you earn when you do work for other people. The Swedish government owns your work, and everything you earn, and they allow you to keep a portion of what you earn as rent that you have to pay as their property, in their country, where you cannot exist without their permission. Lucky for you, they allow you to leave Sweden, unlike the Soviet Union which forbade its citizens from escaping… but they could change that at any time.

By your reasoning, this blank media tax is completely legitimate. You do not own anything in Sweden, not even yourself. You think this is perfectly fine when it comes to land and houses, so why are you complaining about it when it comes to a blank media tax? “You do not own your hard drives in the sense that you think; you rent them from the Swedish government.”

Sweden is in big trouble, not only because they have a bunch of venal crony capitalists in bed with its government, but because people like you have absolutely no clue about what property rights are, how to think logically, what it means to be non violent, and what the proper role of government is.

As long as there are people who will excuse the Swedish government’s actions with the convoluted, anti-human and completely wrong headed logic you just displayed here, there is nothing that they cannot do to you that you can argue against.

Unless your principles are in order, you have no grounds upon which to build a water tight argument against this blank media tax.

Mårten

September 3, 2011

Whoa, first of all, I made no such claims, I certainly believe it’s possible to own something (maybe you should ask yourself where the right to own something comes from). I asked you a “what if” question, and then another what if “there wasn’t a state, how would it be different”…

“Are you saying that in Sweden, the State owns all the land, and that home owners only rent the ground upon which their houses sit from the State? If that is the case, Sweden is a nation of slaves.” According to you we are slaves either way already. But the question is how we would become any less “slaves” in a society without government where the land is owned (or controlled) by a few and our only option is to rent it from them? (After all, that’s what have happened in history over and over again when there wasn’t any government). If the Swedish government was truly democratic it means we own the land collectively at least.

But you are right it’s an off topic discussion best saved for another place.

Secondly, you might not have had time to pick apart my “straw men” but you apparently had time to type a long ad hominem attack…

Thomas Fullerton

September 4, 2011

But the question is how we would become any less “slaves” in a society without government where the land is owned (or controlled) by a few and our only option is to rent it from them? (After all, that’s what have happened in history over and over again when there wasn’t any government).

This is another straw man argument. Land ownership has never been the exclusive preserve of a small number; there have always been smallholders and owners of small plots of land.

This is about who gets to control and own you, and Murray Rothbard sets out perfectly the two options, one of which, you seem to agree with:

If the Swedish government was truly democratic it means we own the land collectively at least.

And there you have it.

“There are then only two alternatives: either (i) a certain class of people, A, have the right to own another class, B; or (2) everyone has the right to own his own equal quotal share of everyone else.”

You seem to accept that everyone should own everyone else’s property in a collectivist system where how people vote determines who gets to keep what and under what terms.

This is anathema to people who understand what liberty is and who want to live free.

It is completely irrational for you to argue against this blank media tax. You agree that it is ‘better’ that property is owned collectively in Sweden, this extends to all property, including the money that you earn, so you have absolutely no grounds upon which to argue against this law.

You need to either accept that your ideas are fundamentally flawed, or stop arguing against measures which fit in perfectly with your anti liberty, pro corpratist, socialist stance.

Mårten

September 5, 2011

“You need to either accept that your ideas are fundamentally flawed, or stop arguing against measures which fit in perfectly with your anti liberty, pro corpratist, socialist stance.”
I haven’t really presented any of my ideas, I’m questioning yours…

If you think you own land in a nation the way you imply, I must disappoint you. To own land simply means the state has given you certain rights to use part of its territory in certain limited ways. It doesn’t mean you “own” the territory in a sovereign-state sense. No nation in the world with any self-preservation would freely part with it’s territory. If you want to stay on its territory you need to be a member of that state (or have a work-visa, etc) and that implies following the law, i.e. paying tax. In that sense tax is not theft, it’s more like a membership fee. If you don’t like it you can opt-out by moving to some other territory. Problem is all territory is occupied already. (Although, no doubt, the territory was once stolen from someone who stole it from someone else who stole it from yet another thief and so on…)

Based on historic evidence if nothing else, abolishing the government will mean some one (most likely neither you nor me) will monopolize all land (that is how the states current territorial claim came to be) and then demand tax/rent (or whatever you want to call it) from anyone on it. If my options are to pay tax to a democratically elected government or to a dictator, king or lord I would prefer the democracy every time. If that makes me an “anti liberty, pro corpratist, socialist” then so be it.

(These aren’t “ideas”, it’s simply historic facts.)

Thomas Fullerton

September 5, 2011

To own land simply means the state has given you certain rights to use part of its territory in certain limited ways.

This is not correct in countries like the United States, where people own land explicitly. Also, you must not keep conflating the word ‘property’ with the idea of land; property means things that you own (or in your case, things that you do not own) this includes blank media and the shirt on your back. There is no difference, ethically, intellectually or otherwise between owning a hard drive or a plot of land; all of them are property, and you have a right to own them that does not come from the State.

I suspect that English is not your first language; you keep talking about being “a member of that state”; the word member is inappropriate because this word is reserved for organisations that you willingly join. In the case of the State, you are either put into service of it by your parents, or, as it is in the United States, the fact that you are born there makes you (and everything you earn) the property of the United States Government. This is not being a ‘member’ of something, it is more like slavery, where you are born into a contract that you have not explicitly agreed to being a party to.

You falsely claim that if you do not like it, you can opt out by moving to some other fictitious territory. What your argument fails to address is that other territories work under the same sort of immoral laws and strictures that your country runs under, so you cannot escape from Sweden to a free country. In any case, it is a highly immoral immoral idea that you believe that people should be forced to leave their homes because a violent mob in the form of the state of Sweden holds some nasty fallacious ideas about the rights of men. I do like your use of the word ‘occupied’. All areas of the world are currently immorally occupied by violent warmongering and thieving nation states, in direct opposition to the benefit of the people who live in those territories.

Your reading of history is flawed. There have been instances of Stateless natural societies that have lasted for over 1000 years. The State is not inevitable, necessary or beneficial; these are all myths that have been drilled into you by the government curriculum that you swallowed hook, like and sinker. If this were not the case, you would know about these natural societies and how successful they were and you would have learned about them in school.

You say:

If my options are to pay tax to a democratically elected government or to a dictator, king or lord I would prefer the democracy every time. If that makes me an “anti liberty, pro corpratist, socialist” then so be it.

This is absurd. First of all, you are paying for a de-facto dictatorship; that is why this thread exists. A company has unilaterally decided to steal money from you… because it can. This is no different to a King deciding to tax you. What you are saying is that you know that what you believe in and support is evil, but it is the lesser of two evils, and thats OK with you.

I don’t have a problem with this, because in the end, people like you will be easy to sweep along in any substantial change that the thinkers movers and shakers intend to make. The world is changing towards liberty. You will be made free wether you like it or not. Consider that we will not be using force to stop you and your violent society, we will simply de-fang the state, and let you pay for it if that is your choice. You and your cohorts however, will no longer have the power to steal from anyone. If you want to steal money, you will have to do it yourself, with your own hands.

This means no more blank media tax. No more attacks on The Pirate Bay, no more compulsion of any kind… peace and prosperity for all, including you!

hkjonus

December 21, 2011

“why can’t you see tax as a membership fee for being a citizen of the state. If you don’t like it you can move.”

The whole point of Democracy is that you DONT have to like it or leave it. Your first choice is to stand and fight injustice through protest and the political system. Taxation is not a membership fee, its more like a form of profit sharing for the government. A “FEE” that is demanded and goes straight into the pockets of some special group and is collected and enforced by another group (the government) is called extortion.

rieh

February 5, 2012

Exactly, and from here in the US, it is pretty clear (although, unfortunately, not to most people) that the government is now a puppet controlled by corporate superpowers.

Myself and a few of my compatriots have been considering going elsewhere… and we considered Sweden one of the last free countries.

So much for that, eh?

ANNM

September 1, 2011

If the copyright industry thinks that they need compensation for legal private copying, then surely the easiest and fairest way to generate that compensation would be to add the fee to the price of the copyrighted product (e.g. music downloads, DVDs, CDs, Spotify subscriptions and so on). After all, you can’t copy a copyrighted work if you don’t actually have access to it in the first place. This way would be much fairer (if we were to pretend that the fee is needed at all) since it would only affect those who bought copyrighted works and thus had the ability to make copies of it. Remember, this is only about legal private copying, filesharing is not a factor in this law.

But no, then the prices for their own products would get higher, which might mean that fewer people bought them, or the margins would get smaller, which might mean that they made less money per sold copy. Can’t have that. It’s much easier to force someone else to raise their prices or decrease their margins and give you that money.

Rick Falkvinge

September 1, 2011

WordPress needs some kind of +1 button for comments, obviously.

Björn Persson

September 2, 2011

Yup. I suggested precisely that when the copyright law was being amended. Did the government listen? Of course not.

The Book says individuals should be taxed no more than 10%. It’s called the Bible. Free trade, usury-free banking, these things are healthy and have been recommended to us over time. Contemporary experience suggests that taxing above this rate, tends to gold-plate the military and encourage the errant-executive class.

myne

September 1, 2011

If you’re paying for copyright infringement, then you should be absolutely protected from any prosecution for copyright infringement.

It’s only logical.
We don’t see cocaine taxes because that would legitimise cocaine.
The same applies to this. The copyright cartel had better think very carefully about what they’re trying to achieve here. If their goal is to massively increase piracy and undermine their legal standpoint against piracy, then they should continue this path.

ANNM

September 1, 2011

It’s not for copyright infringement. You’re paying the fee because you’re allowed to make backup copies of movies etc, and this apparently hurts the copyright industry.

It is an incredibly skilled piece of lobbying. Anyone who thinks about it realises how completely absurd it is, yet similar laws have been passed in many, many countries.

Mårten

September 1, 2011

That’s the worst part, how they have managed to make people believe it’s because of copyright infringement. Someone is laughing all the way to the bank.

Rick Falkvinge

September 1, 2011

Yes, absolutely. I tried to highlight the sheer absurdity of this – that they are getting compensated for what is NOT in their already-ridiculous monopoly.

Putte

September 1, 2011

Who can organize grey import (smuggling) of hard drives and USB sticks that circumvent the tax?

Kricke242

September 1, 2011

There isn’t a new law. And the law says that the copyright cartel has right to a fee/tax on all imported or manufactured devices, that can record sound or motion picture, and is SPECIFICALLY dedicated for private duplicating of copyrighted work of art [sound or motion pictures]. It specifically mentions that they have no right to extort fee on such devices that is not going to be used for private duplication of copyrighted work [sound or motion pictures].

It is absolutely clear that they have no legal right to extort this fee on anything else than perhaps MiniDiscs, mp3-players, HD-videorecorders or those special Audio-CDR.

Also, one has to wonder why this fee isn’t added to the copyrighted material itself, on the price of a CD, DVD, license for cable TV et.c.

Elias.L

September 2, 2011

And what about hobby photographers or artists that don’t sell their music ?

Björn Persson

September 2, 2011

Don’t buy external hard disks while this private tax is in effect. Instead buy an ordinary hard disk and an external enclosure. They don’t tax hard disks intended for internal mounting yet, and they’re not allowed to tax enclosures with no storage medium inside. Put the one inside the other, and you’ve got an external hard disk that doesn’t contribute to financing the copyright lobby.

[…] Posted by The Mad Ranters on Sep 2, 2011 in Entertainment, International, News | 0 comments var addthis_product = 'wpp-261'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};From falkvinge.org: The copyright industry never seems to have had enough. Starting today in Sweden, they demand a private tax for external hard drives and USB memory sticks. The tax they demand is about 9 euros for an external hard drive, or 10 eurocents per gigabyte for USB memory sticks. They have previously demanded a tax for cassette tapes, which was how this private taxation right started, and gradually expanded it to blank CDs and DVDs, as well as media players with built-in hard drives. Yes, that includes the latest game consoles — Swedish kids pay about 15% tax to the copyright industry on a Playstation 3. [FULL ARTICLE] […]

Martin

September 2, 2011

Do you still have to pay this tax if you buy the disc and the empty case separated and mount your external hard drive yourself? It is very easy to do and it can be a nice goodwill creating Piratpartiet -campain to tell people how.

Mårten

September 2, 2011

Actually, that might be a great idea. Could set up workshops teaching people how to put together external drives, how to use encryption, how to use VPN, how to use bittorrent, how to set up blogs, and so on. Would create goodwill and a great way to meet new people and a chance to inform people about pirate party politics.
Could even sell hard drives and enclosures during events and then help people put them together.

Bonk!

September 2, 2011

Mårten you really want to pull out all the stops to avoid paying anything to the creators for the pirated content that you and others thoroughly enjoy.

Mårten

September 3, 2011

Bonk, as pointed out in the article, this isn’t about pirated content, this is about PRIVATE copies. Copies you make for yourself of your legally purchased content. If I make a copy of a CD I bought (legally) for use in my own car, mp3-player or computer, I shouldn’t have to pay an extra fee to copysweden for that. Nor do I want to pay a fee to copysweden every time I buy a USB flash drive.
Who in their right mind thinks payment in exchange for nothing is ok?

Scary Devil Monastery

September 5, 2011

The copyswede tax has null and nothing to do with copyright infringement – not in any legal sense, not in the basis for the taxation, and isn’t, to be specific, in any sense related to copyright infringement.

So your “commentary” to Mårten isn’t even on the level of a straw man argument.

May i ask that you refrain from posting utter nonsense at least?

If we are paying the copyswede levy in order to be able to fileshare in peace then fine. That’s not what this is about. This “tax” is in order to compensate for making personal backups of material which has already been obtained legally.

Worse still, this tax hits a large majority of people who do not make backups of that kind at all and can instead be considered a form of legal extortion aimed mainly at people storing their personal data on external drives and USB.

I don’t think any citizen of Sweden would be in favour of a blanket “tax” representing up to 15% extra debit-on-purchase presented as a legally enforced extortion scheme.

Christoffer

September 5, 2011

Rick, I realize this is off topic, but I’m curious: will the danish pirate party contest the election on september 15th? If so, I hope they do well :).

Icovada

October 27, 2011

Hey, this happened years and years ago in Italy. But nobody talked about it

hkjonus

December 21, 2011

Ironically this is just another law that punishes the law abiding for the wrongs of law breakers. In California they wanted to impose a border crossing fee from Mexico. The money would be use to fight illegals from coming in. As if the people coming in legally are the cause of the ones coming in illegally, that was some politicians solution.

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